The L.A. Times music blog

Album review: Black Crowes' 'Before the Frost'

August 31, 2009 | 6:28
pm

Mainstream rock acts such as veteran Atlanta
outfit the Black Crowes typically find better fortune on the road than
on the sales charts, so it's no surprise that in the last decade
brothers Chris and Rich Robinson have focused more on the live
experience -- both in performance and releasing recordings of various
concerts -- than sequestering themselves away in a studio honing new
material.

They get the best of both worlds on this set of
new songs recorded earlier this year in Woodstock live, for the most
part, in front of a hand-selected audience. Using the home studio built
by the Band's drummer Levon Helm apparently inspired them to branch
further than they characteristically have into the various tributaries
of American roots music. Those explorations feed into the Southern rock
that remains at the center of the Black Crowes sound.

"Good
Morning Captain," the lead-off track, taps the same kind of
big-footprint backbeat and raucous interplay that Helm and his cohorts
did so well. The Robinsons -- who are joined by the band's original
drummer, Steve Gorman, plus guitarist Luther Dickinson, bassist Sven
Pipien and keyboardist Adam MacDougall with guest assistance from
multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell -- move through a range of
classic-rock reference points: Creedence-like swamp-rock, Tom Petty-ish
Americana, Motown-style psychedelia and, in "Make Glad," an experiment
in Southern prog-funk.

There are examinations of rootlessness
("What Is Home," "Houston Don't Dream About Me"), the price musicians
pay for so much time spent getting from here to there and one heartfelt
meditation on the struggle for connection ("Last Place That Love
Lives"). These guys still come up with meaty riffs for fans of
guitar-driven rock, but also leave themselves plenty of room to stretch
out in jam-band excursions.

"Before the Frost . . . " comes with
a code that allows purchasers to get a free, download-only companion
album, " . . . Until the Freeze."

--Randy Lewis

The Black Crowes
"Before the Frost ..."
Silver Arrow/Megaforce
Two and a half stars